Posted
by
pudge
on Tuesday May 06, 2003 @04:11PM
from the six-megs-of-monday-goodness dept.

Numeric writes "Apple has released 10.2.6 update, which you can read in detail. Here's a partial list: Addresses an issue for Mac OS X 10.2.5 in which a kernel panic message may appear if certain USB hubs or devices are connected. Addresses an issue for Mac OS X 10.2.5 in which English is the default language and Asian language scripts are not be available in the International preference pane, if a script's font is not available. Address Book now supports the Sony Ericsson T610 phone."

They're probably spending most of their time getting 10.3 (Panther) ready for release. It's gonna be interesting seeing if Panther really _will_ be available in a 64-bit variant for use on the PPC970 machines.

It is a small list of fixes. 10.2.5 was released less then 3 weeks ago, if memory serves.

Apple just needed to get the 10.2.6 patch out quickly, because it was a pretty signifigant bug for some people.

Since the fix is probably at the kernel level, the fix warrants it's own patch version.

This was my first real experience with an OS X problem. Took me 3 hours to figure out that my Godmother's G4 was crashing because of the USB hub. Pro bono, but at least I got some homecooked meals and some education out of the exchange:)

New computers on the shelf, as an example, are at 10.2.3. This means that 10.2.6 is small over 10.2.5 only...but if you buy a new computer today, or you haven't yet moved to 10.2.5, and you proceed to install 10.2.6, you will see a much longer list.

:-) Yes, but if you are the one the kernel panic happens to... My Epson 1640U scanner started causing panics seemingly out of the blue about two weeks ago. I had update to 10.2.5 a while back but had brought the scanner out of the garage for a quick project two days before. The timing of both events obscured the cause pretty well. Since my Mac is my primary Let me forgot I know anything about computers and just get the work done machine, this gave me a fright.
Did I install something evil? Did I run out of disk? Worst it would kernel panic again within 5-10 minutes of rebooting from a kernel panic. Fortunately I tracked it down to the USB from the logs and presumptively to the scanner. Shutting it off did the trick. I'm actually excited about this patch!:-)

It does, however, load the USB software while it's on that screen, and it would kernel panic regardless of wether or not it was properly shut down. Every other boot, I got the kernel panic screen instructing me to hold down the power key until the machine shut down. The next boot, it was fine. The only common denominator in the various configurations I tried was the USB tablet, and now that I've installed 10.2.6, it doesn't happen at all anymore. And even if fsck came up clean, it still did that kernel

Did the battery problem really exist ? There's no official word from Apple, just a lot of speculation from disgruntled customers. Batteries do wear out.

My iBook battery died very quickly soon after installing 10.2.4, but I use the machine daily both on and off mains and regularly have uptimes of > 30 days because I sleep the machine instead of turning it off. I suppose that's probably a little hard on the battery.

I've been waiting on this myself. I talked to someone at the Apple store back when 10.2.4 was setting everyone on edge with the battery issue and was told "Apple's well aware of it, I expect them to be releasing something soon."

Hmmm...I've been thinking of going the same way but, other than the battery problem, the iBook is a really nice machine.

Also, it runs Linux really well. X is fast. And an interesting thing is that most of the hardware in the iBook is well supported in Linux now. Apple are pretty good with publishing fairly detailed hardware specs and there are far fewer hardware configuration variations with Macs so Linux driver developers don't have to deal with the constantly moving target that confronts Wintel guys.

There is absolutely no way that repairing permissions could have any effect on performance. Impossible. Can't happen. If your permissions are broken, certain things won't work (like Sendmail, if you're running it), but they won't run slower.

- Why are the permisions not installed correctly in the first place?
- Why is it called 'repair permissions', when it actually runs a slew of other tests like fsck?

Right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. The permissions/privs get mucked up when an installer or coder doesn't set them up correctly. "Repairing" them checks the existing permissions of your MacOS X install against a canonical listing of "the way permissions should be" that Disk Utility has.

It's worth noting that that listing has changed, and if you repair permissions while booted from a MacOS X 10.2 CD it will make "fixes" that a later version of Disk Utility will fix back. Permissions war! Also, don't run the standalone "Repair Priviledges" program in MacOS X 10.2; that software was for 10.1.5 only.

"Repair permissions" is one task that Disk Utility does, separate from verify/repair disk volumes (aka fsck) or formatting/partitioning. It also runs on the command line (type 'diskutil' for a list of options; it has no 'man' page).

Lastly, IMO this is something of a "voodoo" fix. I have run many Software Updates and not seen broken permissions after the installation. Sometimes I do see them. It's never caused me much concern but I still do it. Better go run it now, bye!

I installed the update and after restart picked up an additional 250MB of disk space. I know this because I didn't have enough drive space (500MB) required for the system update as well as QT 6.2. I made just enough space to install the upadates and upon reboot had almost 800MB available.

The only permissions out of whack were:./System/Library/Filesystems/hfs.fs/hfs.uti,./private/var/db/locate.database and./private/var/run/utmp

What happened was that your swap files were removed when you rebooted. The system starts with one swap file (size 80 MB) and creates additional ones (also sized 80 MB) when needed. Unfortunately, the system doesn't remove any of these when the memory load is lower. The only (?) way to get rid of them is to reboot (a more permanent solution would be to buy more RAM:-). You can find the swap files in the/var/vm directory.

My question is, if Disk Utility is updated in updates, why hasn't the version number of Disk Utility changed? Also,
As I am understanding it, I should only repair permissions
with the Disk Utility from the boot disk, not say from a Disk Utility from another disk as that utilty woould represent permissions from its own disk? I keep a partitioned second
drive which I keep clean save for system updates and to run
disk utilities. My question again is if I run permissions repair form the second drive on my main

If anything, I have to give kudos to Apple for the size of the update. While this update doesn't have as much in it as previous updates, it's also far smaller, at under 7MB. For those of us less-fortunate in terms of broadband, this is much better than swallowing the "horse-pill" that previous updates have been.

In 10.2.3, when someone would call while Im online, I would get a message saying "an unknown caller is calling, answer, ignore". I would click answer, and I couldnt hear anyone half the time.

In 10.2.4, if someone called while I was online, I would get a kernel panic and lose all of my work... ouch.

In 10.2.5, when someone calls, I can actually click the answer button and talk to them every single time. Im really happy someone is working on this over at Apple.

Im downloading 10.2.6 right now. We'll see what changes that brings. I hope it allows you to resume your connection from the modem menuling. Im tired of digging around for the resume dialog behind all of my windows. I also would love if it put downloads on hold... when Im downloading something, it usually just kicks me offline when someone calls.

Has anyone had problems viewing your iPod in iTunes 4 after the update has run? I tried restoring the iPod to factory settings to see if that changed anything but I still do not see anything in iTunes 4 although I see it appear on the desktop and can use it as a firewire hard drive. I can also use third party iPod transfer programs.

I had this problem right after I installed iT4. I had to delete the installed iPod drived (? kext ??) and use the iT4 installer to re-install the driver. Easy enough once I figured it out, but it took a few hours to get there -- I'm not used to having to think about these things... The message boards in the Apple support section had a number of people experienceing thhis and were a pretty good help.

Okay, so disc burning from the finder is nice, right? It's easy to do, and it doesn't take over your computer while you do it, and it's just nice not to have to use another program. Same with iTunes, great to be able to burn in your playlist order and all that.

The only problem is that to do this, you need to have a supported drive. Huge bummer. They hardly ever add more compatible drives to the list.

My only question is, why don't they go the normal route and allow companies to make drivers for the finder/

They happen to have a huge drive compatibility database which lists tons of drives people have managed to get to work with Finder disk burning and iTunes by modifying configuration files. I have an *officially unsupported* Samsung 32x CD-R/DVD which now works fine with both, thanks to some minor tweaking.

I prefer Toast for these functions, but I didn't like the *Unsupported* label I saw by my drive in the System Profiler.

"The only problem is that to do this, you need to have a supported drive."

Take a look at/System/Library/Frameworks/DiscRecording.framework/Versions/A/Resources/DevicePlugIns/

I have an unsupported Samsung CD-RW. I just opened the SamsungCDR.device-plugin with an hex editor and changed the model description I found there to my model. Use the model description that Toast shows or use any UNIX tool you like.

Make a backup of the changed file, bcz with some system updates it got reset.

Well yes you can do this, but for the average user this is quite a lot to do just to add your CD drive, and it may not always work. It's another one of those things that Apple has made harder than it should be.

I agree with Alrescha: it looks like this 10.2.5 bug fix was somehow dropped on the floor with 10.2.6.

To see this ugly bug again is very frustrating. I've been wrestling with this problem since the 10.2 release, when it was apparently introduced with Rendezvous. Rendezvous uses multi-cast DNS, and required significant changes to the DNS code.

btw, why does the Slashdot server insist on inserting a space between the "254" and the "05" in the first li

in 10.2.4, i could connect to the internet via GPRS on my TMobile t68i without incident.

for the last 3 weeks with 10.2.5, i couldn't connect often evne after 3-5 attempts. When i did connect, it would often not hold for more than a minute. I'm way behind on my data allowence for the month on my account.:-)

10.2.6, i'm back to 10.2.4 days.. i can keep the connection up as long as I like... and should pummel my 10 megs in a day or two now.

i'm using my AlBook 12" on my work desk with my t68i on my desk in the desk stand charger in the exact same position for all 3 software revs. I'm sure its the software, and not the phone or computer.

there is some scary speculation that it's an issue with the IDE bus itself and that no patch will ever be able to fix it. I don't remember seeing this come up on/. yet - anyone ehere had this problem??

after i got the 10.2.6 update on my ibook it ran fine, until i let os 9 check the disk, now findre in X uses 50 percdent cpu. I ran hardwrae tests - ok, fsck - ok, still, then i reinstalled 10.2.1 system folder, still does it, update again to 10.2.6 stull doing it. Called apple, costs $50 to talk to someone. Anyone run intoi this? I moight just back up data and erase and reinstall.Thanx for any help